Development – MetaBrainz Blog

Picard 3 beta 7 released

Today, we have released MusicBrainz Picard 3 beta 7. This new versions brings several fixes over the last beta 5 (yes, we have skipped a beta number again), but also improvements and some new features. Among the highlights are:

Option profiles can now be exported and imported as TOML files. This makes sharing options much easier. We are excited to see how this will be used by you all.
Artist name standardization can now be set to one of three values: no standardization, standardizing only variations of the artist name (“Beatles” vs. “The Beatles”) or standardizing also actual artist name changes (“Diddy”, who previously performed under the names “P. Diddy” and “Puff Daddy”). Standardizing name variations is the new default setting. See also the documentation.
Plugins can now implement custom CD ripper log file support, and there is built-in support for Cyanrip log files.
Picard can now much better handles wrongly or differently encoded filenames when loading files.
The setup wizard got some improvements, allowing users to configure their update notification settings for the app and plugins. Also the setup wizard can now be started again from the help menu. This is not yet the final version of the wizard, but it’s getting closer.
The User Guide was updated to document the latest changes.

Download links and a detailed list of changes since Picard 3 beta 5 are available below. For a more detailed overview of what is new in Picard 3 please see the previous blog post Picard 3 Alpha Release.

While we have all the major features implemented and with the latest bug fixes we are confident in the current code, this is still a pre-release and there might be bugs. If you use this, do so with care, backup your files and please report any issues you encounter.

Some of the changes are also backward incompatible, hence we recommend you make a backup of your Picard.ini config file before trying the beta version. You can do so in Picard’s Options under Advanced > Maintenance.

libdiscid 0.7.0

Version 0.7.0 of libdiscid has been released. libdiscid is a C library that allows applications to easily calculate MusicBrainz and freedb disc IDs from audio CDs or CD TOC details. It also can extract MCN and ISRC information.

This release fixes several issues with the build system and addresses compiler warnings. As a compile time option it is now possible to have methods returning URLs to use HTTPs instead of HTTP, see then changelog for details. Thanks to Riku Viitanen for this contribution. Also the binary packages now include a build for the Windows ARM64 platform.

Version 0.7.0 of libdiscid provides the following changes:

Picard 3 beta 5 released

Today, we’re making available the fifth beta version for the upcoming MusicBrainz Picard 3. This new versions brings some important changes:

The Options menu was reworked with generalized quick settings and easier access to scripts and options.
Handling of the Options dialog and the File Naming Script Editor was streamlined. Editing file naming scripts is now available in the menu in Options > File naming scripts > Edit scripts… or via Ctrl+Shift+S.
Option profiles can now be used with plugin settings, the “Attached option profiles” dialog allows changing selected options.
Plugins can be installed from a local directory without git, which simplifies local development and plugins created just for personal use.

Download links and a detailed list of changes since Picard 3 beta 4 are available below. For a more detailed overview of what is new in Picard 3 please see the previous blog post Picard 3 Alpha Release.

Welcome Summer of Code 2026 contributors!

We are excited to announce the 7 GSOC participants working with us this summer on MetaBrainz projects!
Our apologies for not publishing this sooner, in this complicated first part of the year we simply forgot the announcement, but rest assured the work is progressing on all projects.

As always, the selection process was incredibly tough. We received a great batch of proposals and had a limited number of slots.
We want to sincerely thank everyone who took the time to meet our community and submit a proposal with us!

The whole list of selected proposals can be found on the GSOC website but here is a TL;DR breakdown:

ListenBrainz proposals:

Integrate MusicBrainz events into ListenBrainz (Shirsak)

MusicBrainz has data about past and upcoming concerts that ListenBrainz users can’t see yet. This project will bring live music events directly into ListenBrainz, allowing you to discover shows tailored to your favorite artists.

Compose Multiplatform Migration of ListenBrainz-Android (Nirvan)

Currently, ListenBrainz has a native Android app but no iOS version. This project will migrate the app to a single, shared codebase using Kotlin Multiplatform. This means future features and bug fixes will launch on both Android and iOS at the same time.

Playlists Sorting and Organization (Yateen)

Giving ListenBrainz playlists a massive user-experience upgrade. Users will soon be able to search through playlists, organize them using custom tags, sort tracks (by artist, title, or date added), and convert their MusicBrainz collections straight into playlists.

MusicBrainz proposals:

Modernize search storage format for the MusicBrainz database (Junaid)

Cleaning up the under-the-hood engine that powers MusicBrainz search (Solr). By upgrading internal configurations and removing data redundancy, this project will optimize performance and make searching for music faster and more efficient.

GraphQL Server as a Musicbrainz API Alternative (Sreehari)

Building a fast, modern alternative way for external developers to request MusicBrainz data. This makes it significantly easier and more efficient for third-party developers to build apps using our database.

BookBrainz proposals:

Set Up BookBrainz for Internationalization (Garv)

Breaking down language barriers! BookBrainz is currently English-only. This project lays the technical groundwork to support multiple languages and sets up a BookBrainz project on translations.metabrainz.org where volunteer translators can start translating the site immediately.

Development of a new Calibre plugin for BookBrainz (Waqib)

Connecting BookBrainz with Calibre (the popular e-book management software). This plugin will allow Calibre users to automatically pull book metadata and collections directly from BookBrainz to organize their personal digital libraries.

What if you’re not in GSoC 2026?

Reading this and feeling inspired for contributing to the code still? Volunteer contributors are very welcome all year round even though we might have slightly less time available to help you during the summer. It is also putting you in an ideal situation for applying to next year’s GSoC. You can find some tips for applying to GSoC with us in one of our previous posts. When you are ready, join us on the MetaBrainz Matrix Channel and showcase your initiative and your skills!

Upcoming changes to user accounts and authentication

We are in the process of moving user accounts, authentication and OAuth applications from the MusicBrainz website to the MetaBrainz website.
This centralizes our account management between all the *Brainz projects, along with some security improvements.

Historically, all accounts were managed on the MusicBrainz website simply because it existed before the MetaBrainz Foundation itself. However, creating a MusicBrainz account just to use ListenBrainz or our other sister projects doesn’t make much sense.
We are changing this legacy setup to improve the user experience and bring better cohesion to the entire MetaBrainz ecosystem.

New MetaBrainz login page

Here is what you need to know about how this transition affects you:

Continue reading “Upcoming changes to user accounts and authentication”

Picard 3 beta 4 fixes startup issues on macOS

We have released Picard 3 beta 4. The recently released beta 3 did crash on macOS and when running the picard-plugins command line tool, both has been fixed in this. In addition beta 4 fixes display issues in the new log view.

Download links and a detailed list of changes since Picard 3 beta 3 are available below. For a more detailed overview of what is new in Picard 3 please see the previous blog post Picard 3 Alpha Release.

Picard 3 beta 3 released

Today, we’re making available another pre-release version for the upcoming MusicBrainz Picard 3. This beta release offers various bugfixes and improvements over the last beta. Most notably the release lookup and matching was improved, several cover art related issues were fixed, the UI got more responsive during file load and the log view became faster and allows better filtering.

Download links and a detailed list of changes since Picard 3 beta 1 are available below. For a more detailed overview of what is new in Picard 3 please see the previous blog post Picard 3 Alpha Release.

MusicBrainz database schema change release, 2026-05-11 (with upgrade instructions)

We’re happy to announce the release of our May 2026 database schema change now! Thanks to all who were patient during Monday’s downtime as we released everything to our production servers.

This is a fairly small database schema change release which mostly improves things behind the scenes. Of the schema change tickets, the only one that affects users directly is you are most likely to notice while you browse and edit in MusicBrainz is MBS-14092 (which allows adding series of series, for example for award series for podcasts).

Thanks to chaban, UltimateRiff and yyb987 for having reported bugs and suggested improvements, and thanks to jmrr83, salo.rock and wileyfoxyx for updating the translations.

A new release of MusicBrainz Docker is also available that matches this update of MusicBrainz Server. See the (amended) release notes for update instructions.

MusicBrainz Server update, 2026-04-27

This release mostly consists of a very substantial rewrite of the external links editor code, to make that section of our editors more efficient. While doing that we also fixed a few long-standing links editor bugs. While we kept this code in beta for quite a while so the community could help us catch most new bugs, do not hesitate to report any issues you might find.

A new release of MusicBrainz Docker is also available that matches this update of MusicBrainz Server. See the release notes for update instructions.

Thanks to rinsuki for having contributed to the code. Thanks to fabe56, HibiscusKazeneko and Lioncat6 for having reported bugs and suggested improvements. Thanks to Besnik, DenilsonSama, Khaled Salama, Marc Riera, ShimiDoki, Vaclovas Intas, cerberuzzz, coldified_, dddrnzv, dulijuong_artist, imgradeone, karpuzikov, mfmeulenbelt, salo.rock, smreo1590, syntariavoxmortem, wileyfoxyx and yyb987 for updating the translations. And thanks to all others who tested the beta version!

The git tag is v-2026-04-27.0.

Picard 3 beta 1 released

Today, we’re making available another pre-release version for the upcoming MusicBrainz Picard 3. Beta 1 focuses on fixing issues that were found in the previous releases as well as some minor improvements and updated translations.

Download links and a list of changes since Picard 3 alpha 4 are available below. For a more detailed overview of what is new in Picard 3 please see the previous blog post Picard 3 Alpha Release.